In the beginning
Dan started having seizures his senior year of High School. That was 1997 if you would like to know how old we are. No one can say with 100% certainty why he started having them but we suspect it was from being knocked around in his many years of being on the wrestling team.
I remember when he first told me. We hadn't been dating that long, a month maybe. I was in the kitchen of my parents house and he came over to visit. He stood just inside the doorway and I had my back turned to him talking away. I turned around and looked into his beautiful bright blue eyes (I loved his eyes, they were my favorite physical feature of his) All around his eyes were bright red dots, like little pin pricks, especially under his eyes. "what happened to your face" I said astonished. He didn't answer. I thought perhaps he had gotten in a fight or something and I asked him again. Tears welled up in his eyes as he told me he had had a siezure. He wasn't crying because he was scared of the seizures, he was crying because he was afraid I would break up with him. Idiot, didn't he know I was already in love with him. There was no turning back now. The red dots were burst capillaries caused during the siezure.
We talked for awhile and I honestly don't remember what we said. When he left my mind was at ease. I wasn't worried about it. He had to have a few tests and the Dr would give him some medication and everything would be fine.
Shortly after that we went on a trip to Boise, Dan was going to go to college there in the fall, while I stayed home and finished high school. I don't remember why we were going, some sort of weekend visit thing. We were driving in his little blue pick up (man we loved that little blue truck). Dan was driving and he started to kinda stare off into space. I asked him if he was ok and he didn't answer me. In a space like state he pulled off to the side of the road. This was the first siezure I ever witnessed. It was so small I didn't even know it was a siezure for sure. It was not like in the movies. Just a few small twitches and then he came back to life. I asked him what happened and he said that was a siezure. I insisted that I drive after that and he begrudgingly let me. But like always he said he was fine and he seemed to be but I drove anyway.
I can count on one hand the number of seizures hes had since that one. I can give you approximate dates and degrees.
The first one I just described, That was spring or early summer 1997. It was tiny.
The second one was around 2005. We were living in a little house on the property of a church. He was sleeping, It was a pretty good size. The second biggest one I had ever seen. He bit his tongue really bad and it was bleeding everywhere. I was so scarred I didn't know what to do, so I called his parents. They came rushing over. By the time they got there 10 minutes later Dan was saying "why did you call my parents, I'm perfectly fine, you didn't have to call and wake them up"
The third one was a small cluster of three in 24 hours the week before thanksgiving 2014. (more on this in another blog). These made me take him to the ER where they put him on a new medication. Dan was annoyed I made him go because he "was fine"
The fourth one was that same night in the ER. It was by far the biggest one I had ever seen him have and it scared me. Medical staff were there the whole time.
The fifth one was January 11/12 2015. It was small. Smaller then the one in 2005. Comparable to one in his thanksgiving cluster. It killed him. I still don't know why.
I wrote a book about my grief, you can read it here: Carry on Castle
Comments
Post a Comment